Guide to Athletic Scholarships at Bethune-Cookman University
Bethune-Cookman University offers a range of scholarship grants. Aside from academic scholarships, endowed scholarships and presidential scholarships, a student athlete can also apply for performance scholarships, band scholarships, concert chorale scholarships and athletic scholarships.
External scholarships from United Methodist Church, United Negro College Fund (UNCF) and the State of Florida are also available in Bethune-Cookman University. These are offered by the university in recognition of academic excellence, with the vision of aiding students to become future leaders in their respective communities and humanity in general.
About Bethune-Cookman University
Bethune-Cookman University, located in Daytona, Florida, traces its roots to Mary Mcleod Bethune, a civil rights leader and educator who founded the university in 1904. The university’s significance in the history of African –Americans made it one of the “historically black universities” (HBCU), a label accorded to black universities founded before 1964.
Affiliated with United Methodist Church, Bethune-Cookman University upholds the standards and principles of the church. One of its emphasis is ensuring the quality of care for the students’ learning through building a sense of community, commitment of faculty to counsel and in helping students to learn particularly those with special needs, developing special programs and encouraging an active spiritual life by an involved chaplain.
Bethune-Cookman University offers eight schools of learning in major fields like business, liberal arts, education, nursing, engineering, math, professional studies and social sciences, through which the university aims to produce future leaders of community, society, the church and the world.
Athletics Department of Bethune-Cookman University
Bethune-Cookman University athletes compete in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision (FCS). B-CU is a member of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, a sports conference for HBCUs.
Athletic Programs of Bethune-Cookman University
Bethune-Cookman University varsity teams for men play basketball, baseball, cross country, football, track and field, tennis and golf. Women athletes compete in basketball, bowling, cross country, golf, track and field, softball and volleyball.
OFFICIAL SPORTS TEAM: Wildcats
Garnering recognition in majority of its various college sports teams, the Wildcats have a total of 31 MEAC titles to be proud of, 14 of which came from the baseball varsity team. Coached by Mervyl Melendez, B-Cu alumnus, the team has been consistently bagging the MEAC championships from 2000 to 2004, and picked up their winning streak again starting 2006 to 2011, earning another 6 MEAC championship titles.
The men’s cross country and bowling teams of the Bethune-Cookman University Wildcats won 1 title each, while women’s cross country , tennis and women’s indoor track and field boasts of 2 titles per team. The football team of the Bethune-Cookman University Wildcats has 3 titles, and their softball team has garnered 6 titles as of this writing.
The strength conditioning methodologies of the Bethune-Cookman University Wildcats, as indicated in their handbook as of this writing, state that one has to change one’s thinking in order to allow a specific mindset that will change an athlete’s training perspectives. Bethune-Cookman University aims to cross-train athletes in various disciplines, with effective training techniques for better performance of both coaches and athletes.
The Marching Wildcats (also called “The Pride”) is Bethune-Cookman University’s marching band, which consists of 325 members supervised and directed by Donovan V. Wells, a BCU alumnus and also a former member of the marching band. The Sophisticat Flag Corps, instrumentalists and the 14 Karat Gold dancers are all members of the Marching Wildcats.
The 14 Karat Gold dancers are sometimes featured as solo performers. They have been invited to appear in popular TV shows like “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” in 2005, HBCU Battle of the Bands in 2008 and an appearance in the movie “Drumline”, which was shown in 2002.
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